I know many people have posted a thread with this type of problem, however none of them seem to be exactly like mine. I have a Dell inspiron e1405. I bought it probably a year and a half ago. It has been working fine pretty much the whole time i have had it. The other day i was using it and everything was fine and i shut it down normally, and the next morning i go to turn it on and i get a black screen with the words "No bootable devices, strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for setup utility, press f5 to run onboard diagnostics" posted at the top of the screen. I ran the diagnostics and it said that i had no recognizable hard drive. I ran the vista setup disk and tried to repair and it wouldn't work. It said there were no disks to repair. I went to just install windows again hoping it would just fix what ever was wrong with my hard drive. when it went to install it said there were no disks to partition windows. I tried reseating the hard drive and that was no luck. Is it safe to assume my hard drive is fried, or is there anything else i could do to try and fix it?

I know many people have posted a thread with this type of problem, however none of them seem to be exactly like mine. I have a Dell inspiron e1405. I bought it probably a year and a half ago. It has been working fine pretty much the whole time i have had it. The other day i was using it and everything was fine and i shut it down normally, and the next morning i go to turn it on and i get a black screen with the words "No bootable devices, strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for setup utility, press f5 to run onboard diagnostics" posted at the top of the screen. I ran the diagnostics and it said that i had no recognizable hard drive. I ran the vista setup disk and tried to repair and it wouldn't work. It said there were no disks to repair. I went to just install windows again hoping it would just fix what ever was wrong with my hard drive. when it went to install it said there were no disks to partition windows. I tried reseating the hard drive and that was no luck. Is it safe to assume my hard drive is fried, or is there anything else i could do to try and fix it?

Please help

Jason

If you go into the BIOS can you see the hard drive listed? If listed..there might just be corruption of the MBR. Good luck!

It's always a bad sign when the diagnostics do not detect the drive at all. If you have important data that's not backed up, it would be worth your effort to purchase an external USB drive enclosure (for 2.5" drives) and see if a different computer can detect the drive.

I know many people have posted a thread with this type of problem, however none of them seem to be exactly like mine. I have a Dell inspiron e1405. I bought it probably a year and a half ago. It has been working fine pretty much the whole time i have had it. The other day i was using it and everything was fine and i shut it down normally, and the next morning i go to turn it on and i get a black screen with the words "No bootable devices, strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for setup utility, press f5 to run onboard diagnostics" posted at the top of the screen. I ran the diagnostics and it said that i had no recognizable hard drive. I ran the vista setup disk and tried to repair and it wouldn't work. It said there were no disks to repair. I went to just install windows again hoping it would just fix what ever was wrong with my hard drive. when it went to install it said there were no disks to partition windows. I tried reseating the hard drive and that was no luck. Is it safe to assume my hard drive is fried, or is there anything else i could do to try and fix it?

Please help

Jason

If you go into the BIOS can you see the hard drive listed? If listed..there might just be corruption of the MBR. Good luck!

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like hardware failure. I have seen this at my work numerous times, where users simply turn on their workstations an are met with this type of error. The fact that the BIOS does not see the hard drives tells me that it is more than simply a Master Boot Record issue. My suggestion is to call DELL if the system is still under warranty and have them replace the hard drive. Or simply buy a new Hard Drive at retail and throw it into your system. Good luck.

it looks like the boot sector from the HD was damaged... and the problem might be with the mother board or the BIOS...

I have removed the HD from the LAPTOP and put it on a DESKTOP... the HD was recognized, which means that the HD still works, but the PC was not able to BOOT with that HD, which made me wonder if the problem is really on the HD... can someone else give me a few more ideas on how to solve my problem?

would it be possible to install windows on the HD with the SERIAL that I got when I bought the LAPTOP but using my desktop to do it? (I know that the serial only works on the DELL LAPTOP and can't be used anywhere else)... I just won't do it on the laptop directly because the HD is not being detected there...

Based on what you said I would say the HDD may be fried but I would suggest a restart / reboot and watch your HDD indicator light if you have one. You can find that out by looking for a basic owners manual. If the light flickers on start then the HD is getting power and attempting to work.

The diag will normmaly give you at least a failure message. Somting like HDD failed just as it would if a portion of memory was bad. You may just have lost the driver associated with the HD. If the driver was lost or corrupted the system will not recognise the HD and naturally will not be able to boot the OS.

I also noticed you had the option for F2 / setup. Hit the F2 and open the setup to see if it has the HD listed. Do not change any of the settings without writing down the original ones.

I am not sure about Vista but you may be able to access the boot menu by pressing F12 repeatedly , as soon as you turn on the system. Generaly it will be a black screen with a list of options. Get your drivers and utilities CD and put it in the CD drive, select the option in the list to boot from the CD and restart, then run a full diag from the CD. It will take about an hour.

Based on what you said I would say the HDD may be fried but I would suggest a restart / reboot and watch your HDD indicator light if you have one. You can find that out by looking for a basic owners manual. If the light flickers on start then the HD is getting power and attempting to work.

The diag will normmaly give you at least a failure message. Somting like HDD failed just as it would if a portion of memory was bad. You may just have lost the driver associated with the HD. If the driver was lost or corrupted the system will not recognise the HD and naturally will not be able to boot the OS.

I also noticed you had the option for F2 / setup. Hit the F2 and open the setup to see if it has the HD listed. Do not change any of the settings without writing down the original ones.

I am not sure about Vista but you may be able to access the boot menu by pressing F12 repeatedly , as soon as you turn on the system. Generaly it will be a black screen with a list of options. Get your drivers and utilities CD and put it in the CD drive, select the option in the list to boot from the CD and restart, then run a full diag from the CD. It will take about an hour.

Hope that helps

Joe

I have used a linux Live CD and when it was trying to read the HD it keep giving me errors... (I did that on my desktop as my laptop doesn't recognize the HD)

it is strange that on my Desktop the HD was recognized, while on the laptop it wasn't... can that be an indication that my Mother Board might also be damaged?

the Big Linux Live CD kept giving me errors on sectors 0 to 4, which means that the boot sector of the HD is damaged... and when i tried to load Windows (using both HDs on my Desktop it kept freezing and wouldn't finish loading Windows) - it works fine when I have only my main HD on my desktop...

looks like I will begin the year spending more than I was expecting...

I have used a linux Live CD and when it was trying to read the HD it keep giving me errors... (I did that on my desktop as my laptop doesn't recognize the HD)

it is strange that on my Desktop the HD was recognized, while on the laptop it wasn't... can that be an indication that my Mother Board might also be damaged?

the Big Linux Live CD kept giving me errors on sectors 0 to 4, which means that the boot sector of the HD is damaged... and when i tried to load Windows (using both HDs on my Desktop it kept freezing and wouldn't finish loading Windows) - it works fine when I have only my main HD on my desktop...

looks like I will begin the year spending more than I was expecting...